The rich have taken away the keys.
Tuesday, January 25, 2022
Housing affordability turned down again in 2020 as housing prices climbed ever higher and incomes fell
Sunday, January 23, 2022
Nemesis comes for old soldiers Tom Brady, 44, and Aaron Rodgers, 38
Both quarterbacks were defeated in the NFL divisional playoffs by field goals in the closing seconds of their respective contests.
Pure poetry.
In Massachusetts breakthrough deaths must represent a shocking 25.5% of confirmed deaths since March 7, 2021
Cumulative confirmed deaths since the beginning of the pandemic: 20,884
https://www.mass.gov/info-details/covid-19-response-reporting
Breakthrough deaths: 1,224 (5.86% of confirmed deaths to date)
https://www.mass.gov/doc/weekly-report-covid-19-cases-in-vaccinated-individuals-january-18-2022/download
Cumulative confirmed cases since the beginning of the pandemic: 1,418,149
Breakthrough cases: 348,510 (24.57% of confirmed cases to date)
Breakthrough hospitalizations: 5,437 (0.38% of all confirmed cases to date; cumulative hospitalization data is not available from Massachusetts)
Presenting the data this way, however, leads to mixing the breakthrough data with the data from the first year of the pandemic when there were no vaccines through which to break.
We have to subtract the first year data to see what is really going on since vaccinations began and were characteristic of the second year.
A convenient date to choose for the end of the first year is March 7, 2021, when The Covid Tracking Project ceased its pandemic data gathering efforts. That data helpfully included cumulative hospitalization numbers. And fewer than 10% of Massachusetts residents had been fully vaccinated by that date.
In the first year of the pandemic through March 7, 2021, Massachusetts had 16,085 confirmed deaths, 559,083 confirmed cases, and 19,713 ever hospitalized for COVID.
The hospitalization rate in the first year was therefore 3.525% of confirmed cases, slightly higher than the national rate in the first year of the pandemic at 3.06%.
This means in year two to date since March 7, 2021 there have been only 4,799 additional confirmed deaths, but 859,066 additional confirmed cases and approximately 30,282 additional hospitalizations (I used the first year hospitalization rate of 3.525% as a proxy for this, which I grant is only an educated guess).
From those baseline figures from the second year of the pandemic to date, we get the following rates for breakthroughs since March 7, 2021 using the breakthrough data Massachusetts helpfully reports unlike most states:
Breakthrough deaths: 25.50%
Breakthrough cases: 40.56%
Breakthrough hospitalizations: ~17.95%.
In Massachusetts, the proportion of serious outcomes for vaccinated people is much higher than people realize. This is certainly true for deaths.
Saturday, January 22, 2022
Crazed libertarian can't stand other people, but can't do anything about it, so what's new?
Here:
Friday, January 21, 2022
Africa, still barely 10% fully vaccinated, continues to show the strong seasonality pattern of COVID-19
Deaths per million have consistently peaked in August and January in Africa to date.
Virus gonna virus.
66% of children hospitalized for COVID-19 have a comorbidity, mostly obesity
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/21/kids-covid-hospitalizations-hit-pandemic-high-worrying-doctors-and-parents-.html
Thursday, January 20, 2022
LOL, now that there are MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS OF THEM, Ms. Lyndon Haviland wants the term "breakthrough cases" banned, and lies like a rug about what Fauci said
At TheHill, where else?
Let's stop saying 'breakthrough cases' — it isn't helping
When the vaccine was introduced, Dr. Anthony Fauci and others said it would offer the public a strong layer of protection against COVID-19. They sought to manage expectations by saying it would lower the possibility of getting the virus, but that, like all vaccines, it wouldn’t guarantee immunity. They tried to make it clear that infection was still possible, and that the vaccine would still do its job by drastically lowering the chance of severe illness, hospitalization and death. All of this has proven true.
By trumpeting the term “breakthrough cases,” public health authorities are spreading the impression that these infections are novel, unique and unanticipated by the scientific community. In fact, the vaccine was designed precisely with this likelihood in mind, and it is working exactly as intended.
Yeah, right. That's why Fauci said on at least three separate occasions before Delta hit that vaccination levels hitting 50% of population would prevent additional case surges like we saw in April 2021. He was sure after that that the steep declines in cases we saw nationally were a sign that the vaccines were working.
And then along came the July 4th, Provincetown, incident, proving vaccines didn't stop the spread, and Delta, proving him even more horribly wrong.
The shift to "it prevents serious illness, hospitalization and death" was . . . a shift!
But even that hasn't been true. Mass vaccination has not reduced either cases or deaths Jul-Dec 2021 compared with Jul-Dec 2020.
These people are just awful, deplorable even, because they keep touting a vaccine which isn't a true vaccine, and because of it vaccinated people have been running around spreading serious illness, hospitalization and death.
Words have meaning. Censoring them won't stop the death toll.
Wednesday, January 19, 2022
Climate Update For KGRR: December 2021 and 2021 Annual
Tuesday, January 18, 2022
Mass vaccination in 2021 in the United States reduced neither cases nor deaths from COVID-19 "Delta" variant, aka the India variant
Delta dominated from July 1 through December 31, 2021:
Monday, January 17, 2022
If the Fed folks think raising the Federal Funds Rate will help control inflation, they are sadly mistaken . . . again
From 1983 through 2001, the Federal Funds Rate was aggressively high and averaged 6.27%, and the Consumer Price Index averaged 3.24%.*
From 2002 through 2020, the Consumer Price Index was much lower on average at 2.01%, as the Fed pursued an aggressive low interest rate policy, which averaged just 1.36%.
So, lower Federal Funds Rate, lower inflation, higher Federal Funds Rate, higher inflation, just the opposite of what the Fed says it intends.
But only a numbskull thinks these are correlated. The Fed is merely reactionary to complex existing phenomena, not pro-actively creating conditions.
* I used the average of the annual averages.
Sunday, January 16, 2022
At current infection rates in the UK and the US, we won't see "herd immunity", defined as 70% infected with Omicron, until sometime in November
The US is averaging roughly 720k infections per day, and the UK 147k, so far in January.
In the US you have to have roughly 232m people infected to get to 70%. At the current rate of infection, that's 322 days.
In the UK you have to have roughly 48m people infected to get to 70%. At the current rate of infection, that's 327 days.
There is no way to predict if current rates of infection will persist, but current rates put us to mid-November.
One thing's for sure, however, the vaccines sure as hell aren't stopping it.
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings
... by the middle of the Second Century ... there were few Greeks and Romans left. They had destroyed themselves by miscegenation, internecine wars, and that fatuous tolerance with which they permitted themselves to be displaced by their subjects and slaves. ...
-- Revilo P. Oliver, "By Their Fruits Ye Shall Know Them", Liberty Bell, August 1985
The vaccine mandate for healthcare workers was decided by the Supremes in a 5-4 vote where Roberts and Kavanaugh voted with the three liberals
Tucker Carlson laughably says Kavanaugh voted with the liberals on this because his confirmation hearings broke him.
Ridiculous beyond words.
Saturday, January 15, 2022
Our Enemy The State wants to stop reporting COVID-19 case numbers entirely because Omicron breakthroughs are making monkeys out of them and their stupid vaccines
Omicron case counts are shattering all previous COVID-19 records. But the numbers don’t carry the same weight they used to. State and local health departments are preparing to explain that to the public and start reporting more meaningful data on the virus.
More.
Remember when Donald 15 cases going to zero Trump wanted to stop testing to reduce case counts because they were making him look so bad?
THESE PEOPLE ARE TRUMP.
Friday, January 14, 2022
Democrats won control of all the important levers of federal government in 2020, but "democracy is on life support"
I'll say.
Thursday, January 13, 2022
Sam's Club seemed fully stocked to me this morning: No shortages of anything I needed
Eggs, butter, and ketchup prices were a little bit higher than previously.
Wednesday, January 12, 2022
The problem with Rex Reed is the people he names in the same paragraph
He's not a critic. He's a drive-by shooter.
The people to whom we waved goodbye in 2021 were not all heroes. Expect no celebratory parades for disgraced Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff or Hustler publisher and smut peddler Larry Flynt, but in fairness, Flynt was a brave advocate for First Amendment rights before he was gunned down by a racist extremist in 1978 and left paralyzed for the rest of his life. And “So long” to Prince Philip, 99, the Duke of Edinburgh, who left the monarch of England, Queen Elizabeth II, to endure the antics of her dysfunctional family alone.
Tuesday, January 11, 2022
LOL CDC Director Walensky at the beginning of October: With 164 million vaccinated we should expect "tens of thousands perhaps of breakthrough infections"
The US has added 10 million new cases since mid-December alone, 26 days ago. The previous record for a calendar month was Dec 2020 with 6.4 million.
January 2022 is going to be a breakthrough doozy. We have already 6.9 million cases in the first ten days of January alone.
This is what you get when you oversell an under-tested therapeutic as a vaccine.
These people should all be fired, including anyone who has blamed unvaccinated people for spreading this disease when the CDC has here months ago clearly admitted that vaccinated people are still spreading it.
Hell, they admitted it in July after Provincetown.
Vaccinated people have been spreading COVID all along.
Remember when the hysterical Rachel Maddow proclaimed her faith in the ability of the new vaccines to stop the spread?
The virus stops with every vaccinated person, she said.
It doesn't.
LOL NBC: Boosted Americans home sick with Omicron are "confused"
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/we-have-gone-backwards-covid-confusion-snarls-biden-white-house-n1287282
Monday, January 10, 2022
LOL, The Kansas City Star is as ignorant as Justice Sotomayor, knows nothing about how Omicron breakthroughs are utterly crushing the booster in places like Iceland, The UK, Denmark, and Malta
KC Star:
The CDC's Walensky is such a Democrat hack she won't even correct an obvious, enormous whopper promoted by none other than Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor
BAIER: Now, what we can find from Friday suggests there are fewer than 3,500 current pediatric hospitalizations from COVID-19. Is that true?
WALENSKY: Yeah. But, you know, here's what I can tell you about our pediatric hospitalizations now. First of all, the vast majority of children who are in the hospital are unvaccinated ...
BAIER: Understood, but the number is not 100,000. It's roughly 3,500 in hospitals now.
WALENSKY: It -- yes, there are -- there are -- and in fact what I will say is, while pediatric hospitalizations are rising, there are still about 15-fold least [less?] than hospitalizations of our older age demographics.
BAIER: Do you have a number of children on ventilators?
WALENSKY: I do not have that off the top of my head, but what I can say is for it -- I don't believe there are any in many of these hospitals who are vaccinated. So, really, the highest risk of being on a ventilator if your child is if you're unvaccinated [sic]. ...
BAIER: ... I guess what I’m getting at in this opening is that the Supreme Court is in the process of dealing with this big issue about mandates. And do you feel responsibility as the CDC director to correct a very big mischaracterization by one of the Supreme Court justices?
WALENSKY: Yeah, here's what I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you that, right now, 17 -- if you're unvaccinated, you're 17 times more likely to be in the hospital and 20 times more likely to die than if you're boosted. ...
Q: Are 100,000 children really hospitalized for COVID-19?
A: Mostly unvaccinated ones.
Sunday, January 9, 2022
The Sweden cheerleaders like Ann Coulter keep at it, but Sweden just keeps outperforming at least 7 other fellow European neighbors in the deaths per million category
You can't unkill all the old people killed in Sweden early in the pandemic, who early on laid the foundation of Sweden's present ignominy. They were killed in institutions by workers, many of whom are immigrants and not native Swedes, who spread the disease to them. Sweden got out front early with these deaths, and only kept going.
So-called conservatives don't seem too interested in that story, because it doesn't fit their anti-lockdown, anti-mask narrative, for which they think Sweden is the model, never mind Sweden's immediate neighbors to this day have done much better. The immigrant angle should be right up their alley, too, but nope. Conservatives seem little interested in learning about that, or about what has worked better and why.
Meanwhile Ex-Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo oversaw a similar massacre by transferring COVID-19 patients into nursing homes full of vulnerable elderly people who caught the disease and died. But he had to resign not because of that, but because he felt-up some ladies uninvited.
Connecticut is embarking just now as we speak on the same nursing home policy as New York.
If you are an old person in America, you probably think they are out to get you.
And you would be right.